


kiln fired

by emilywolf



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Everyone lives, self indulgent vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-30 01:06:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11452806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilywolf/pseuds/emilywolf
Summary: He's almost like ceramic, he thinks sometimes, a hard exterior that's close to shattering at any given moment. Then he snorts because that's almost too art student, and gets back to working on his project.





	kiln fired

The ceramics in the box clink together as Connor pulls them out of his car. He closes the hatch with his elbow, ignoring the clang of the ceramics hitting each other due to his rough handling. These fuckers aren't gonna live to see tomorrow, he thinks, and he's walking out to the backyard.

The Murphy household has a stone path to the back patio. The patio is concrete with square pillars, a modern look. Connor hates it. It'll serve the purpose he needs it for, though, and he drops the box onto the built in bar.

It's full of pieces from his throwing class. 

He’d failed most of his senior classes, which is to be expected when you take two months off to recover from your failed suicide attempt, and he had to repeat the year. After months of back and forth with teachers, the guidance counselor, and the superintendent, Connor’s parents had managed to convince them to accept alternate courses instead of putting him back in the literal hell that was high school. 

The local community college offered classes that matched the ones he needed. His dad had shmucked up to some “old friends” and gotten him in. His mom encouraged him to “take some classes that you want to take, honey, it'll make you feel better,” and to get her to stop bothering him, he'd signed up for the first open art class, which was Intro to Ceramics.

Connor hadn't expected anything from it beyond some shitty pots that would go deep into the attic in a dusty box, but he'd been more into it than he thought. He could lose himself in the clay, throwing onto the wedging table, pulling up walls on the wheel, trimming and carving into leather dry clay, again and again until it was ten at night and his mother had texted him twenty times about coming home before giving up. 

The class needed a lot of pots-- the first assignment was to make at least fifty mugs. Connor had made his fifty shitty mugs, and sat in a room of people who critiqued each others shitty mugs for a grade, then listened to his teacher point out the flaws in his shitty mugs. Now, he had fifty shitty mugs he needed to do something with.

Selling was out of the options. Connor had dignity, at least, and wasn't about to charge people to take misshapen mugs with handles just too big or just too small to hold comfortably. Giving them away was out for the same reason. He might be able to throw them away. The most appealing option, though, was to lob them against a solid fucking wall and make them shatter.

What Connor giveth, he taketh away, or whatever.

Which brings him here. He's pulling out the top mug-- it's a disgusting shade of teal with a comically oversized handle, and has edges so sharp you could cut yourself-- and judging the distance, tossing it up, catching it, then reeling back and fucking hurling it into the wall as hard as he can.

It shatters. It fragments into big chunks, which hit the ground and chime and clatter. It feels good. Cathartic. He pulls out another, throwing as hard as he can, watching it separate in half and the pieces fly away from the wall, breaking further on the concrete of the patio.

He has another ready to go when fucking Larry comes out, no doubt to investigate the noise. He doesn't say anything, just watches, and Connor ignores him in favor of throwing another at the wall. And another. Another. He’s holding a purple handleless cup with carvings of flowers when his dad speaks.

“You at least keeping one?”

Connor pauses, hand lowering. Then he’s launching it at the wall, watching it explode. His dad says nothing.

“I've got a few at the studio.” He does. He’s got a blue one with carved trees for Evan, a lilac one with golden stars for Zoe, and his personal favorite for his mom. He thought about making one for Kleinman, decided his teacher wouldn't appreciate a mug with a dick for a handle and fuck written all over it, thought about one for Alana, decided he would make her a plate or a teapot or something later, thought about one for his dad, decided he was going to be a spiteful piece of shit and not make him one. He doesn't have one for himself. He doesn't want one for himself.

Connor digs out an ugly speckled orange mug and lobs it at the wall. Shatter. An unglazed unhandled mug. Shatter. A failed attempt at carving a pine. Shatter. 

“You're throwing it wrong.”

The feeling rises in his stomach, somewhere between hatred and shame and disgust. He can't even break shit without being criticized. Can't even break shit right.

His dad is next to him, suddenly, and pulling out a mug. It's one of his first few, before he'd figured out how to make straight walls. His dad judges the distance, gives the mug an experimental toss into the air, then throws it. It explodes, little pieces of shrapnel flying out and disappearing somewhere into the garden. There's nothing identifiable left of it, as to the big chunks of the ones Connor had been throwing.

“You're locking your elbow. Goes faster if you keep your arm loose.”

Connors kneejerk reaction is to roll his eyes, keep throwing wrong, but he pauses for a minute, because he's  _ trying. _ He’s trying to try. He and his father haven't gotten along, haven't been comfortable, even after the medication and the therapy and the recovery. He can try. Besides, if his dad's a dick later, he might as well practice to hurl something full speed at his head.

So he tries. Connor throws it, keeps his elbow loose, and watches it explode against the wall. It's nowhere as demolished as the one his dad threw, but the fragments are finer, further from being recognizable. His dad gives a half smile, and Connor swears he hasn't seen anything resembling pride from him since the fifth grade, but here it is. He doesn't know how to feel about it.

 

* * *

 

It’s been a long day. It’s been a really fucking long day, and he’s relapsed in at least two ways of the word, and he’s having a bad fucking trip. It’s his first bad trip in a while.

Connor’s not hallucinating like that one time in junior year, but everything feels wrong, like he’s in a universe where everything’s slightly different. The wrongness is there, there, there, he’s not sure why his dad’s shouting at him, he’s not sure why he’s driving, he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be doing in the studio. He’s staring at the clay bin, staring at the hunk of clay he’s pulled out, staring at his tools. He’s not sure what to do. He texts Evan.

_ give me something to make _ __   
maybe a bear?  
__ sure 

Connor’s pretty sure he knows what a bear looks like, remembers Winnie the Pooh and Smokey and teddy bears, so he starts with that vague idea. He wants to do something big, something solid, something real. Maybe if his bear is big and solid the world will start to not be fuzzy and different and wrong.

He’s got ten pounds of clay, easy, he’s smacking and hitting and scratching it into a lumbering shape, focusing on the sting on his palms, noticing the clay under his nails, watching it come together. It’s sitting up, and he whacks an arm on so it’s reaching towards the ceiling. He’s made a vague shape of a bear. It looks hideous. It looks tired. It looks sad. It’s almost a self portrait.

Connor wipes a hand on his pants, white dust smearing across black denim that he knows his dad’s gonna moan about because  _ we just fixed the washer, now you’re going to clog it with your clay, _ pulls out his phone. Evan’s sent him a picture he took of a bear during his orientation at the preserve. It’s rubbing up against a tree, ungraceful and awkward and heavy.  _ This is a black bear! _ the message says, and Connor can almost hear the excitement in his voice through the fuzz of his mind,  _ We have grizzlys too but they’re more dangerous. I wouldn’t be taking a picture haha! _ Dangerous. Connor feels dangerous. He huffs out a half laugh when he remembers there’s hardly any pictures of him too.

He googles grizzly bears, takes note of the hunch of their shoulders, takes note of the texture of fur, takes note of teeth. He’s editing his original form, adding a hump, making the neck thicker, raking a wire brush over the surface to get the impression of rough fur. He decides to have the mouth open, yelling, soundless. Maybe he can make up a poetic title, have his teacher be proud, make this something good and worth the space and not a waste of effort.

He’s a waste of time.

The radio that’s been playing in the background seems too loud suddenly, the sticky wet on his hands disgusting, the pieces of dried clay in his hair too heavy, and he’s scooting back in his chair. Someone else is here, some kid in headphones, and they don’t even notice, don’t even care, and there’s a broken noise in his throat and he’s shoving his way outside. 

It’s cold. The kiln is an imposing figure, there’s statues nearby and he feels like they’re staring, watching, waiting for him to shatter like his mugs and his bowls and waiting for him to break and waiting for him to do something irredeemable so they can tell his professor so he can tell the dean so she can expel him and Connor can finally be useless and unwanted and die in the ditch like he fucking wanted to, because he was a waste of time, a waste of resources, a waste of money, and he wishes he could fucking die.

Then his phone buzzes. He’s grabbing it, trying to ground himself, trying to remember his therapist’s words, trying to convince himself he’s wanted, because he is sometimes, and the message is Evan. He’s sent a text,  _ can i see your bear? _ and then immediately  _ if you want to i dont want to force you  _ and Connor is breathing in, then out, then in, typing up SOS and sending it and Evan asks if he needs someone there and Connor is empty, he’s empty and hurting but he can’t let anyone see, because he’d shatter, and Evan just starts sending stories from his latest internship.

Evan’s a fast typer, and Connor has to read things at least two or three times when he’s like this, so it’s an almost complete removal from reality. Evan’s mostly though his encounter with a skunk ( _ so it turns out tomato soup is an actual thing, not just a tv thing, and now i never want to eat it ever again _ ) when Connor’s grounded, his hands still, and he just waits til Evan’s done before he types out a thanks.

When he walks back in, the kid on the wheel looks up, doesn’t say anything, maybe raises an eyebrow, but is immediately back to the plate they’re working on.

Connor snaps a picture of the bear, covers it in a garbage bag, sends the picture to Evan, and leaves.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> self indulgent but i do think connor would get a kick out of ceramics. in throwing you get to destroy like 90% of what you make its kinda soothing that Nothing Matters cause 1, it only takes five minutes to remake, 2, theres always a chance it'll break in the kiln so you might as well not pick favorites


End file.
